1. Field of the Disclosure
The invention generally relates to methods, systems, and software applications for porting telephone numbers on wireless devices. More particularly, the invention relates to relates to methods, systems, and software applications for porting telephone numbers independent of, during, or after activation of a wireless device.
2. Related Art
Many telephone customers are generally hesitant to switch telephone service providers due to the inconveniences which may stem therefrom. One such inconvenience may include porting a telephone number from one service provider to another service provider. Telephone service providers may include, for example, wireless service providers, landline service providers, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) providers and the like.
Porting is governed by the Federal Communications Commission's Local Number Portability (LNP) rules. Specifically, the rules generally require that customers can switch their telephone number to a new service provider as long as the customer remains in the same geographic area. A geographic area can include a general metropolitan area such as, for example, New York City. That is, customers remaining in the same geographic area can maintain their telephone number from a landline, wireless or VoIP provider.
The porting process may take anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days. The duration of time for porting depends upon a couple factors including, but not limited to, the time for a customer to initiate the request, the complexity of the request (plurality of numbers to port), the process time of the new service provider, and the backlog of the old service provider. Moreover, the porting process usually requires completing authorization forms which need to be faxed to the current service provider. Alternatively, the authorization requires access to the Internet to submit a request to the current service provider. While some service providers have customer service representatives which may assist with the porting request, the time spent may be deducted from available minutes and/or require considerable time waiting for a representative.
A need exists in the art for innovative methods, systems and software applications on electronic devices to help improve user experience with porting telephone numbers from/to a landline, wireless and/or VoIP provider.
Another need exists in the art for methods, systems and software applications to reduce the time required to complete porting from an old service provider to a new service provider.
Yet another need exists in the art for methods, systems and software applications on electronic devices which inform the customer of the progress of the porting process.